Homeless

“We are homeless Francis - we have no real place in this World or this time” Chips said, for the thousandth time.

Francis placed his hand to calm him on the ruff of his neck.

Telepathically he smiled a half smile - designed to be consolatory and reassuring. He paused for further thought.

“Pietro” he said “You and I both know there is no going back” he hesitated here as he saw the large brown eyes begin to weep. The fur down to the big dog’s snout bore trails where the eyes had cried day after day with such sadness.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Despondent Chips

Chips was despondent - his coat itched terribly like the twig woven tunics of the penitent monks - his was a misery of crawling fleas and canine eczema.

The diet at the lab was not at all what he was used to, and the fumes from the cleaning agents there were excessive. Basically he was suffering ‘lab coat’.

He often sat mournfully at the feet of Francesco, whose sympathetic nerves twinged in unison with his beloved companion.

Both were captains of non-conversation. These mute spirits would telepathically converse, one to another with a constant ease, and over time it had grown to be something of a single-minded dialogue.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Different to most

Francis of course was different to most, for his Elvish blood gave him the perception and skill that charmed the woodland and the farm - and attracted even the terrible.

And whilst he could not coax a daisy from the moss, as Puck could do, he could multiply fish as his Master had done, and pacify the natures of both beasts and men, just by his presence.

The old Pope knew not of the Robber Hode and his connection with the Elven nephew, but he had had his wonderings, and it was for this very reason he had sent spies into the community now five years old.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Daffodils would spring up

Daffodils would spring up wherever his feet touched the ground. It was just one of his many tricks in the common world for the fay - for when developed, they can inspire life wherever they go.

Depending on which season, the bulbs might sleep and wait until Spring, to push their way up through the dirt, to answer their calling sun - but nonetheless these floral tracks and trails would begin at the footfall of this ageing elf.

Words, like flowers, would spill out from the mouths of mortals around him involuntarily - their trails wound pathways back to their heart-forged thoughts - fast flying and skimming the ethers - like fireflies in winding lines, illuminated by their passions of any given moment.

Puck always knew their thoughts, and their intentions, before they were forged into words. He knew it all, for you see human beings really aren’t all that complicated or profound … they can be confusingly random, but were never really a match for his own wit and knowledge.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Early Morning

Darkness was all around as it was still the early morning and not yet lit.

He couldn’t see where the words were coming from, yet the voice sounded cordial enough.

“What would you have Francesco, if you could have anything?” was asked, deeply, with consideration. It seemed to be coming from the lion above from where he sat.

Perhaps this was an invitation to pray out loud, Francis bethought. I will oblige -

“Here then”, he began -

“Merciful benefactor,
Lord of Lords,
Creation’s gate
Today I pray
I pray this day
this day of days
this prayer of prayers:
for Wisdom’s light: to bespoke our minds
for Grace’s charity: to provoke our cares
for Heaven’s bounty: to sustain our souls
for Godly Reason: to make calm our selves."

He stopped here, for there was a great cracking noise above and Francis moved quickly, instinctively rising to his feet, in case any of the stone were to fall.

It was the lion - the great stone lion from up above — whose hardened shell had taken on a living form, and with a heavy thud, sprang all the way down, and there stood right before him, staring at Francis in the half-light of the new morning.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Metropolis of Antiquity

Francis felt himself to be a very long way from home.

At the first he had borne the delight of a tourist - wide-eyed to the fascinating aspects of this metropolis of antiquity and faith. 

But then the ghosts had crowded in on him - whispering their complaints with rasping wraith-words … a breathless petitioning for his interest, forlorn in the injustices that had taken them and their loved ones into their sodden graves.

How did a city as beautiful as this, house so much sorrow?

He was conflicted more so.

The aged Pope had required his reporting, asking for this audience now due the very next day; but he had not the heart to fulfil this meeting. In fact, he had so much heart the anomalies of Rome were eroding his confidence entirely.

He stopped to rest at the foot of one of those lions, sitting at the ground beneath, he opened a roll of wool that he carried with him, and wrapped it around his shoulders to the ground. Closing his eyes he started to pray.

“Be careful my boy, lest your prayers disturb the pious” he heard a voice say. It had come from above him.

“I know not what you mean” he answered back.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Monuments

There were Roman lions cast in bronze, carved in sandstone, and sculpted in marble, almost everywhere all over the great city.

There were so many, one could say, that it was almost expected, when passing by a fountain or an public place, to find one or two of the giant cats lying stretched across a pillar or a gate.

When Francis had been summoned into the Holy City he had been transfixed by the lavish empire of artists, with their great works around the colonnades and vestibules, in houses large and small - detailed paintings and engravings, mosaics and marvellous effigies. It was apparent to him that the entire populace was touched by this beauty.

The faces of the folk dwelling in the city were markedly different, he had observed also. Perhaps it was that the wear of poverty, or the shadows of ale, did not afflict the countenance there.

No farmer or miner could be found in these streets. The merchants, and the soldiers who ventured the roads, appeared refined and well kept. Everywhere there were cassocks and shrouds, and an uncommonly vast number of Muslims who were taking quarters at the outskirts on a pilgrimage all of their own.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Big Sack

This Troll sported the smile of an imbecile, and stood far too close for her liking. His head was too large and his spiky hair unkempt and greasy. Charley could smell it from where he stood. She was not familiar with his kind, and because he was not dressed in traditional fay costume, she took him to be nothing more than an unfortunate vagrant.

She rummaged through her handbag as though to find some change to give him - it also gave her the excuse to look away. She hid her expression with her the curls falling down - for some reason this odd fellow really bothered her. Charley admonished herself for these unkind thoughts.

He had interrupted her contemplations. She had come to this park to find some time for herself, and to be able to finally be alone with her memories.

“Typical” she thought, “just typical that someone would turn up and interrupt my peaceful moment like this”.

Upon looking up she saw he was holding a large dirty sack. She could smell something farm-like coming from him, or it, or both. She tried to smile, holding out a five pound note.

“Are you from around here?” she asked in the friendliest voice she could muster.

He did not say anything but pointed to a gardener’s shed not far. She relaxed. Oh perhaps that's all he was, some untidy groundsman out cleaning up.

“That’s a rather big sack” she said cordially - edging up the bench to get a few inches away. She then moved to get up.

“Big enough” he grunted.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Troll

Charley was sequestered out to each city’s head office, and it was this that had brought her back to the UK, returning to the story of her own beginning.

She watched the mists skip around the trees below, the random flash from the lighting of a cigarette; a trundle noise of the caretaker's trolley; the intermittent jogger winding their way to the lake for their final mile; the park was a'buzz and a'hum with the new day’s activity.

The more absorbed she became in staring out at the wildlife around, she drifted far from her own melancholy, from this vacuous feeling that nothing really made sense any more.

It was there and then that the troll appeared.

He came as though from out of nowhere, staring at her expectantly. He stood fairly tall for his kind, five foot eight or so; and was extremely wide, with his belt straining around his mid-drift, in the fashion of Tweedle-dee.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Neutering the Beloved Plants

Walther Roggenkamp

The companies responsible for neutering the beloved plants offended the etheric world and its occupants terribly.

To the beings that so closely attended these crops and their offspring, the genetically modified seeds were of the worst sorcery imaginable - for both the world of the Fay, and the etheric vitality of the plant kingdom, had but one driving and determining force: Life itself.

A plant that could not naturally re-seed itself was a veritable zombie, missing its soul, its future, and its connection into the World from the outset.

And, for those plants so injured, the fairy folk who would usually stay close, instead up and moved to but another field, another source … finding no attraction with the first now depleted patch.

A plant that could not naturally re-seed itself was a veritable zombie, missing its soul, its future, and its connection into the World from the outset.

And, for those plants so injured, the fairy folk who would usually stay close, instead up and moved to but another field, another source … finding no attraction with the first now depleted patch.

Very soon these same crops could not sustain the humans that ate of them - because their true vitality of life-force was bereft also. And just as the starved starch was parched and stripped of any goodness, the one-time crops became a food in name only.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Kernel

Florence Harrison 

Puck had given the day-to-day management of Johnstone Pharma to Charley just three weeks after the exchange. He returned to his usual business back home: the seed bank.

It was of an impressive size and housed many rare species he documented and kept ‘alive’.

Goober would jokingly refer to him as ‘the Kernel’ as Puck’s passions had grown into obsession, with both the collecting and disseminating of his hybrid and heritage saplings, seedlings and coveted seeds.

Pouches and packets of crop ‘gold’ would mysteriously manifest into farms whose harvest had fallen genetically infertile.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Nothing Came

Charley felt heartbroken.

As she sat on the park bench at the top of the hill, looking out over the rolling grounds beneath her, crowded with clusters of shivering trees, she tried to feel what her mother might have felt, sitting there as she did, so many years before.

She strained to remember something - anything - of those early years before her death. But nothing came.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Boat "Hubris"

In ancient Greece, Puck rode in a boat that sailed backwards.

The people named this voyager ‘Hubris’ for they held great fear of it reaching places that the mortals were not meant to go - the very ends of the earth - where, it was said, one could meet face to face with the gods.

Of course this was only partially correct, as the vessel would take him and his passengers through the channels, and further on, to find passage into the lands of Faerie.

He travelled to those most special of conjunctions, a nautical wormhole, where ships could disappear into, never to return.

In reality, the boat would sail its weight right into the harbours of the etheric realm, emptying its occupants right onto the shores of Faerie land.

It was not so easy these days to take human beings on board, or into, an adventure such as this.

It seemed that those gateways on earth and sea had closed - and at best when found, they could only inspire visions of the faraway dreamlands … no longer providing a proper en-trance in, anymore.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Problem in Building C

“You know I can’t leave Dad right now - not now - especially whilst the buyout is still taking place. There is so much to do, and I committed to him with this purchase. He has no mind for business as you know.”

“Well he must have a pretty bloody good mind to secure the deal he’s just won” Calvin snapped.

His reaction was now a mixture of rejection and jealousy - wishing hard he could turn the clocks back and vacate the lot of them.

“Calvin I am not really sure what you are thinking when you ask me to go with you. Do you mean a holiday somewhere … or, something more permanent … another employment?”

The problem was that he had absolutely no idea, no prospects. He was free however, for the first time in his life, with all the liberties a wealth like his could bring. But somehow it did not feel true or possible. He felt more constrained than ever - it was stifling to be this rich, and unemployed.

Without realizing Charley read his thoughts.

“But you are not without a job, in point of fact dear scientist, your contract states that you are bound to this company for a full year more with the changeovers to … you know … to show us the ropes?” her voice softened - clearly he was not handling this well.

“Of course” he said, taking a deep breath. The manacles of familiar routine returned, and Calvin relaxed.

“Good, then that will give us time together”, he added picking up her hand again, pressing his thumb into her palm.

For some reason Charley did not like this, although she did not know why.

She looked behind her to see Robyn having just entered the courtyard watching them.

“I did not want to interrupt” she said rather nervously. “But it seems we have a problem in building C and Mr Black asked me to get the both of you right away.”

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

It was Different

“Charles, I want you to come with me.”

He pressed against her from behind and as he said this Calvin had placed her hand in his and stroked it ever so lightly.

This was incredibly unusual behaviour for him to show to Charley - up until now it had been seemingly nothing more than a professional collaboration, with her adoration of him along the way being largely unacknowledged.

Apart from that, he was barely an adult - Charley still considered him a boy much more suited to Robyn, she thought quietly to herself.

Now it was different - or seemed to be. Calvin was displaced and looking to her as the nearest rock to hold onto. She felt sorry for him.

Charley slipped her hand out from his and spun around looking him in the eyes - searching for more, much more than even this. But Calvin gave nothing - he just stared expectantly back.


- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

The Dancing Flame

Francis looked at the Hode and with the light of the dancing flame and could see many lines appear across his countenance … he was of course many many thousands of years aged, and upon occasion, if you had the eyes to see, these ages would show just briefly, revealing his honest expression.

And then his face brightened once more returning to a man of barely forty, as he drew a small pouch from his cloak. The gold glittered a little through the cloth of it. He handed the clinking sack over to Francis with a nod.

“A gift from the rich,” he said, well pleased with himself in handing it over - “a gift to the needy from the robber Hode.”

“They’ll be missing you in Britain.” Francis jibed, taking the pouch with a returning nod of appreciation.

The Hode rose to his feet, readying to leave.

“And what say of the frog?” asked Francis, still perplexed.

“Oh, he just does not like you. I should be careful of that one.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Little Humor

Arild Rosenkrantz

“Oh, and also, I needed a little humour to sweeten my trials.”

“Trials? Is your labor heavy?”

“It is.”

“Where for?”

“Look around you Francis - Men are earnest, but their concerns are rarely with merit. Their lives are short, yet they waste so many minutes between. I am all but done with their corrupting ways.”

“Then why be here at all?”

“I cannot say.”

“I shall pray for you Uncle.”

“And I, you.”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Chicken & Frog

“It is the chicken and the frog” the Hode replied most earnestly.

“The chicken and the frog?”

“Yes, the chicken is an emissary of the Pope.”

“His Eminence sought to parley with many animals over this past year - hoping to coerce their tiny minds. He tried to control their scattered ways. It was you yourself Franco, that inspired his persistent obsession. He had the chicken implanted into your brood. A soothsayer had counselled him that the hen could talk in plain speak, when returned to him. The Pope was hopeful in this, and waits greedily.”

“But who would tell him that the chicken could talk?”

“It was I,” said the Hode blandly.

“To what end brother?” asked Francis bemused by the thought.

“Well, it's a little complex, but the short of it is that the old Pope was vexed with your talents and had set out to test your mettle - your authenticity - your true pious standing … and if I had not stepped in, someone who did not know you so well may have misrepresented your calling.”

“I see”, said Francis appreciatively.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Spies

In the clearing Francesco found Robin sitting before a small fire brewing coffee. Huddled, robed, with a very large hood, it was almost impossible to see anyone there at all - the fabric seemed to change color depending on the light around it. The Hode’s face was clearly visible however, intent on the campfire before him.

“You’re late” he growled.

Francis smiled.

“Always” he said with a mighty laugh, then sitting on the ground with now the fire between them.

“I have unwanted news Nephew. I thought you need to know, that two of your brethren are imposters. One is a spy and the other a usurper.”

Francis held an infinite trust when it came to the wisdom and words of his friend, his Uncle, and mentor. If the Hode said this it was with good reason. But still the news was troubling.

“Why us? Why here? Where for?”

He then added also, “and who?”


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Lonesome

John Swanson 

"Come back to bed Brother!” called Cedro from the dark.

"Cedro" was his new name given him, after the Cedar tree, for the strength he had shown (relinquishing a life of lust and desire), his full title was ‘Cedro the Fornicator’, but he preferred the abbreviation.

On this night Francis had taken himself for a walk - he ever had difficulty sleeping.

The truth was his spirit was lonesome for one, and not for the many. People made him feel claustrophobic - and as kind and accommodating as they were, his soul could never find enough space to put between himself and them.

The animals were very different - they complied, and over time became something of an extension of himself. This was precisely how he imagined himself to be in relation to God - as the animals were to him. This, Francis believed, was not obedience, but rather an intuitive alignment.

Francis chose this allegiance above all others, even before his relationship with the Elven people, which was often a point of discussion between them all.

“Why designate at all?” the Hode quizzed him meaningfully. “One does not surely exclude the other?”

But Francis shrugged. He felt displaced amongst the Mortals and equally so with the Elven. The saints were the only company he had found that held a place for him.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Insulation

John Swanson 

The hall was as long as it was wide and had been insulated by reams of hay banked up, creating an inner wall, from which the animals would feed from constantly.

Brother Pious invented this system and it worked well - the blocks of dry weed seemed to hold a warmth of their own, however in the years to follow one wall generated so much heat it caused a fire to ignite, and their communal hut burnt to the ground.

The pets were many and varied, pacified by Francis whose very presence calmed them to quiet. He would often rise early for Matins - seeking out the furtherest nub of the hill, and the creatures then would stir, with a moan and a squeak, beginning their pre-dawn medley.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Shared Stable

A peculiarity of Francis was to sleep alongside his wolves, as well as the smaller creatures that gathered around.

He chose to to lie down beside them throughout the windswept nights, for mutual warmth. He was not the only brother to see the sense of it; for his Community of now twenty, cohabited with the creatures of both forest and farm.

The Order would say, that if it was good enough for our little Lord to take sleep in a barn, it was correct for ourselves also.

And so their bedded room was something of a large stable, that was shared, instead of the individual cold cells ordinarily used by the monks in the towns.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Marauding Dragons

Climate change is real.

Although unseen by men, its cause can be directly attributed to angry dragons.

The folk of Faerie perceive them prowling the globe, with their gaseous breath, sour and hot - vast beings comprising of coal and carbon, from the decayed remains of tumultuous thought, let loose in a world that is whipped by their tails, their engorged bodies swooping here and there, behind the clouds and beneath the mountains, stalking the storms, and feeding from the electric currents striking the earth.

Yes, the Fay knew the cause only too well - the reminder of similar times gone, past hung its silver halo, although now cold as the sodden grave, yet once the sporting ground for these dragons of the tempest.

Legends of old spoke of entire towns reduced to cinders, and the marauding of these vacuous beasts, grown in the depths of the darkest of histories, only to reappear in Humanity’s dawn.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS, Second Chances

Puck's Sense of Self

There was another great point of difference between Puck and most of the Fay from which he had come … he had the ability to discern himself from the crowd. Puck’s sense of self was always present - his own presence, as it were, spoke the loudest to him.

This could be said for the mortals as well. Most, like the fairies, identify with one common mind - whilst only a few can be separate enough to have thoughts that are their own. Each had a consciousness of individuality, as it were.

Puck saw this as being the true evolution of both - as long as selfishness did not overtake the selflessness they had known.

The magic kingdoms rested heavily upon one another, with the deep magic of the humans and their slumbering intellects, and the wakeful light-filled immortals with their repetitive ways.

- Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

A Rare Sophistication

Tinker Bell was a fairy. In actuality she was over ten thousand fairies.

With the successful writer celebrating her, the name of Tinker Bell became incredibly popular amongst the ‘small folk’. And thus they multiplied.

Fairies associate with mortals far more than mortals can ever realize these days. They love to copy their clothes and mimic their ways - and with their dual evolutionary pathways they are either destined for heaven for for hell, depending very much upon their mortal brothers they emulate so well.

Very few have managed to successfully take form within the material world, to be seen concretely by a human.

Puck and Goober were far ahead of their race when it came to presenting a strong appearance. Whilst they appeared to be as solid a presence as any other who walked the earth, they were in truth, in substance, purely ethereal.

Travelling between worlds as they did, required a sophistication that was rare indeed. To be this adept, depended largely on their close affiliation with Mankind - taking thousands of years of identifying with what it meant to be human - to feel as they did, to breathe as they would, to know and to be.


-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances

Eccentric

“Granted Dad’s a little eccentric, but there is really nothing wrong with my father’s thinking. I can see where you are coming from … but” - here she hesitated trying to find the words to reassure him.

The exit door burst open and through it tumbled Puck and Goober. Puck had a top hat on and was waving a British flag, whilst Goober was chasing after him with a capsicum aerosol, spraying the air randomly.

“Careful with that!” hollered an irate Calvin who recognised the product immediately. I54 - Pepper Spray - Johnstone Pharma supplied half of the United States police with these and were adapting an even stronger propellant for the military market.

Puck sharply did a 360 turn back to Goober and pushed him into a bed of spongy hydrangeas, he then ripped the spray out of Goober’s hand and projected its contents two inches right into his eyes.

Calvin was horrified and immediately reached for his phone to call the onsite medics.

Goober did not rise out of the bush, but gave an almighty sneeze and wheeze, and then vanished into thin air. Calvin rubbed his own eyes in disbelief and looked again - still the fellow had disappeared.

“I win!” exclaimed Puck with a hail hearty boom.

Francis stumbled into the bright light wearing a live pigeon on each shoulder. His rainbow kaftan glittered in the sunshine having fine threads of silver woven through the rustic fabric. He casually drew a handful of seed from its side pocket and held his palm open for the two birds to feed from.

Meanwhile Puck removed his top hat and was collecting stray petals from the flower bed, muttering something about making a cup of tea with them.

-Gabriel Brunsdon, AZLANDER: NEVER ENDINGS: Second Chances